The Man With The Golden Torc (2007) - Plot & Excerpts
Five stars stands for awesome, and that's what this book is! I loved it. I was a little worried that I wouldn't like it as much as the Nightside series, but boy was I wrong.This book takes my love of James Bond spy movies and supernatural stories and makes a wonderful hybrid, but it has Simon R. Green's own stamp and spin on it. He incorporated all the humor which will make me laugh out loud, the angsty moments, and some thrilling/scary/downright horrific moments as well. I loved Eddie! Although I still love John Taylor from the Nightside series, I think I like Eddie more, because I got to see him as a fully developed character who evolved over the course of this book. He started out kind of arrogant, so assured of his place in the world. He got a painful wakeup call, and I experienced the gauntlet of emotions he faced as he realized his family wasn't the court of knights in golden armor that he believed they were. I think Eddie really rolled with the punches, dealt with a lot here, and came out on top, the hard way. He's a good guy. He cares about the world, about people. He truly believes in protecting the innocents and fighting the good fight, even at his own personal cost. Even though he can kill without remorse when necessary, he doesn't kill wantonly, and he's never a bully. Even though he doesn't fall in with the party line and play the good little soldier like his family demands, he's very loyal, and family matters to him. Because he's able to think for himself and he loves his family at the same time, he was the best guy to deal with the rot destroying his family from the inside out.Mr. Green always surprises me with the concepts he integrates into his stories, and I love that about him. The underlying origin of the family's power really surprised (and horrified) me, but it makes sense at the same time. I like how he built this story on the legend of the druids. I respect how Mr. Green brings in uniquely British folklore, legends, and storytelling in his stories. It's one of the things that keeps me coming back. And his sense of humor doesn't hurt either.Molly was a good companion for Eddie on his journey. She helps him to see that all is not as it appears. At the same time, he helps her to see that not all organizations that smack of the establishment have to be a bad thing. The world does need an organized force who can deal with the nasty supernatural threats, because that power vacuum will be filled, one way or the other. I loved their back and forth, sometimes trading insults, sometimes compliments. It was very well-done flirting that played excellently into this story. Their romance fits and compliments this story wonderfully.I loved this trip through England, Simon R. Green style. Although John Taylor takes me on a tour of the Nightside, and I am happy to merely observe that bizarre, creepy, horrific world from the detached view of my book; I am fully Eddie's sidekick on his dangerous journey to find out why he was declared Rogue and to do something about that. It had all the high-octane elements of a Bond action flick, but with fantastic supernatural/arcane elements. I loved the references to legends and lore, and a few Lovecraftian nods thrown in for good measure. Like the Bond movies, this book has the cool gadgets, even cooler because they are supernatural. Eddie's Uncle Jack, called The Armourer, could give MI6's Q a run for his money. Mr. Green did not let me down with this book. I have found yet another male-lead urban fantasy series that I simply must keep up with and add to my keeper shelf. Although I could probably write Mr. Green a crazy fan letter after reading this novel, I will let this semi-gushing review suffice!Casting Wish List:Jamie Bamber as Eddie Drood: Lucy Brown as Molly Metcalf: Jim Broadbent as Uncle Jack, The Armourer:
I wasn't sure I'd like this. I usually dig my heels in and resist "humorous" fantasy novels. They're not my cup of cocoa. Smart and funny is great; I have a weakness for really clever puns. But I'm not usually willing to offer the same suspension of disbelief to a book written with the primary intent of being comical as I am a more grounded book with a sense of humor. And I'd heard of Simon R. Green's books primarily as humor. Well, The Man with the Golden Torc was funny - from the title on through. The wonderful thing about it was that it never sacrificed storytelling to make a joke, never stretched for the humor, never beat me over the head with a pun. Puns did abound - Archie Leech? Ow, and I resent that on behalf of Archibald Alexnder Leach - and so did jokes and running gags ("the infamous Molly Metcalf"), and I chuckled several times and smiled more. It was good, and it was funny, and the humor was integral, partly down to a narrator with an honestly witty voice, and partly to a feeling that the world was run by people who saw no reason not to be amusing in the setting up and naming of things, including super-villains. Well done. And, funnily enough (no pun intended), I learned a couple of things. Eddie Drood (whose name, along with Shaman Bond and Archie Leech, makes me wonder how many references I missed) mentions that the Drood home base boasts Rembrandts, Goyas, and Schalckens. I don't remember ever hearing of Schalcken before, which is surprising considering he seems fairly major and considering I thought I'd had a fairly decent art history education. I also picked up a few music recommendations (Hawkwind, Mary Hopkins, and Within Temptation), so this was a multi-media presentation. It also prompted me to look up Jaffa cakes. This wasn't perfect. There were a few instances of "But I thought you just said ... ?" In discussing the merits of the torc and the armour, Eddie explains several times in the first chapter that "no one sees me unless I want them to", which was (intentionally, I'm wondering belatedly?) funny because it seemed like every time he stated it was just before or after someone saw him who shouldn't have. The whole book was filled with instances of the much-vaunted perfect, impenetrable-in-all-ways protection of the torc being penetrated or overcome in one way or another. Another "huh?" moment for me followed Eddie and Molly's hike through the sewers of London. Although a visit to another ... establishment ... left its scent mark on him to the point that no one wanted to sit next to him on public transport, the schlep through what were described as overwhelmingly pungent tunnels seemed not to leave a trace of odor on them, given that there was no reaction from anyone they met before bathing and changing clothes. Small things, these, but they caught at my attention like slivers in a finger. So: not perfect, but, overall, I loved it. It was fast-paced and didn't let go, and I genuinely like Eddie Drood and the earnest goodness of (most of) his family. I loved the story, unique and well thought out as it was. The humor was not unalloyed - there are a couple of very serious elements to the plot, and there are sacrifices along the way. But the protagonists are good people doing what they can and what they must, and, occasionally, having a lot of fun doing it. Highly recommended. My favorite line: "You know, sometimes I swear the whole universe runs on irony."
What do You think about The Man With The Golden Torc (2007)?
This is an incredibly cheesy book, much like the old James Bond movies it emulates (although without the gratuitous sex.) It's not a skillfully-written novel, but once you get into it, it's good fluffy fun.That said, I found it hard to get into. The plot and character motivations make little sense for the first hundred pages, and there's some very repetitive strings of events. For example, there's a car chase where discrete clumps of baddies attack the protagonist and are vanquished, one by one, seemingly endlessly. As a reading experience, it's bit of a pointless grind.The book is always inventive, but it's also contrived, with overly-convenient plot developments popping up everywhere. I didn't ever find it believable, but eventually I started to find it pretty amusing. I would have had a more positive reaction to the book if I'd known it was supposed to be silly, but there wasn't much to indicate that it wasn't a straight-faced urban fantasy. So, buyer beware. If you like this sort of thing, then it's a pretty fun novel. If you don't, then it's a rather irritating reading experience.
—JJ DeBenedictis
Wow, what a mess..here is how story unfolds : we have our softhearted and naive agent/killer with a long list of gadgets to start with - indestructible golden armor, hand-watch to turn back time, auto aiming gun with unlimited bullets and portable door. He meets a series of almighty bad guys who happen to have weapons to counter his gadgets, but not to worry, our hero just keeps finding bigger and better gadgets - super-powerful shaman from another dimension, badge to confuse the whole universe and finally a stick that can destroy the whole universe! To generate some obligatory suspense he might just forget to use these ridiculous gadgets at times but always count on our bad guys to go in traditional monologue before attacking and we all know how that ends. Maybe book was supposed to be some mishmash parody of Bond and Dresden files but it just does not work for me.
—Crescendo
His name is Drood. Edwin Drood.Cover name: Shaman Bond.His whole life, he’s been taught that his only reason for being is to protect mankind and maintain order in a world saturated with magic, super-science, aliens, and monsters. Around his throat, Eddie wears a magic torc–it’s retractable armor and an invisibility cloak all rolled into one. But trouble is stirring–there are evil powers that want to take the Drood family down, and a traitor in the family. So when Eddie is summoned home from the field for the first time in ten years, he knows it can’t be good.My big mistake with this book is that I took the cover art at its visual word and approached the novel as yet another Urban Fantasy. Never having been a James Bond watcher, I completely missed Green’s play on the 1974 movie title, The Man with the Golden Gun, and so was completely unprepared for the novel’s tongue-in-cheek style. Green’s urban fantasy adventure delivers a kind of Men In Black meets The Bourne Identity with a wisecracking cast of characters.With its heavy helping of cheese, witty comebacks, and action violence that levels entire city blocks in the middle of London, this is a Hollywood action flick in writing form.But two and a half stars are lopped off the book for a shaky beginning, a show-off narrator with an adolescent swagger, and the very convenient ending. The characters were one-dimensional, and the overall world hard to swallow. While Edwin’s brief run-in with a sex cult makes me a little wary of recommending this book to the younger YA crowd, I think this book will be best enjoyed by action-spy-fantasy minded teens who like superhero flicks.Read my full review here.
—Naiya
![Liebesgrüße Aus Der Hölle[Sein Job: Streng Geheim, Sein Auftrag: Jagd Auf Dämonen] (2010) by Simon R. Green](/i/cover.jpg)